Grade Levels of Activities

The offline activities were designed to investigate the three themes of self-portrait, use of space, and

composition as a stage set.

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The staff has taught self-portrait painting to students from the age of six to the age of seven-

teen, varying the amount of motivational discussion about characteristics and self-expression

(as needed for each age group). Early elementary students may concentrate on the location of

the facial features on the head and how these features alter with expressions of emotion

(smiling for happy, frowning for anger or worry). Late elementary students could look at how

realistic (or abstract) some portraits are and what details tell them that a painting is realistic

(or abstract). Then they will think about and create realistic (or abstract) details their own

portrait. The discussion is of utmost importance in motivating a student to learn a new

artistic concept and be able to show his/her learning through production of a work based on

that concept. The combination of the viewing of art, discussion, and production produces

sustained learning in all four categories of the study of art. Creative expression with media

alone does not do this.

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The idea of perspective and space is one that interests students starting in about the sixth

grade, when students want to represent things in art `as they really are,' three-dimensionally

and at various distances. However, lower grades are able to understand and use overlapping

to show perspective, making faraway objects smaller, and using lighter, duller colors or

values to create distance.

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A Web site that discusses perspective is part of a course on Western Technology

https://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/190outln/perslide.htm

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Leonardo's Perspective Web pages investigate aerial and linear perspective with shockwave

interactivity and paintings.

https://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/LeonardosPerspective.html

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The stage set activity was tested successfully on a local seventh grade class. To explain the

concept of stage, a trip to the school stage would be appropriate to discuss the different areas

and how they relate to a flat canvas or paper when creating a representational painting. An

example of an interdisciplinary unit is a class studying the Renaissance in sixth grade. A

group could make a model Elizabethan stage and arrange characters on it in conjunction with

looking at how Renaissance painters used this concept. Students could then create their own

paintings using the stage set composition.